1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a connector for connecting a plurality of metal terminals each clamped to wire to each of a plurality of terminal plates formed on a printed circuit board, and more particularly to a connector of this sort provided with a metal terminal cover and a terminal retainer.
2. Description of the Related Art
An example of a connector for connecting a plurality of metal terminals each clamped to wire to a printed circuit board is disclosed in Japanese Published Unexamined (Kokai) Utility Model Application No. 5-36778. The connector of this sort is usually composed of a connector housing for housing a plurality of metal terminals clamped to wire, respectively; a terminal retainer for retaining the inserted metal terminals inserted into the connector housing; and a terminal cover moved from a terminal cover position to a terminal uncover position only when the metal terminals have been all inserted perfectly into the connector housing and thereby the terminal retainer can be engaged with the connector housing at the full engage position. On the other hand, the printed circuit board can be inserted into a connector engage opening of the casing for connection with the metal terminals, only when the terminal cover can be moved from the terminal cover position and to the terminal uncover position.
For the connector of this type, a mechanism for detecting that the metal terminals have been all inserted perfectly into the connector housing is provided by utilization of the mutual positional relationship between the terminal retainer and the terminal cover, as described above.
In more detail, only when all the metal terminals have been inserted into the connector housing perfectly in the horizontal direction, for instance, the terminal retainer can be perfectly engaged with the metal terminals within the connector housing in the vertical direction, so that the terminal cover can be moved from the terminal cover position to the terminal uncover position in the horizontal direction without any interference with the terminal retainer. In other words, even if any one of the metal terminal is not perfectly inserted into the connector housing, since the terminal retainer is disengaged from the metal terminal, the terminal retainer interferes with the movable terminal cover, so that it is possible to detect an imperfect insertion of the metal terminal into the connector housing.
In the prior art connector of connecting metal terminals to a printed circuit board, however, since the terminal retainer is formed into a simple flat plate shape, whenever some metal terminals are not perfectly inserted into the connector housing, the terminal retainer is deformed along the longitudinal direction thereof. In particular, when the middle metal terminal is not perfectly inserted into the connector housing, since the both sides of the metal terminals are deformed into a convex shape (the middle portion projects upward) along the longitudinal direction thereof when the metal retainer is forcedly pushed toward the connector housing, there exists a problem in that the terminal cover can be moved erroneously from the terminal cover position to the terminal uncover position, thus causing an imperfect insertion of the metal terminals into the connector housing, that is, a malconnection between the metal terminals and the printed circuit board.